Athena’s POV
I’m not waiting anymore.
Not for another hour. Not another scrape of boots down the hallway outside this room. I’m done letting them decide if I live or die.
My hands won’t stop shaking. I keep clenching and unclenching them, watching the veins pop like blue vines. But they work. That’s all that matters. My legs wobble like half-set jelly, and my back screams when I breathe, but I’m upright.
Just barely.
The map I stole is folded and stuffed into the torn hem of my dress. My escape plan is more guesses than facts. I only know the pattern of the guards’ shifts because I listened to their boredom for nights on end. Half of them don’t even look my way anymore.
They think I’m nothing. Less than nothing. A dead girl breathing.
Let them.
I move slowly, hunched, dragging my l
